By Tom Bridge
Mashup Graphic Courtesy of Paulo
Today’s Metro kerfuffle involved a train coming slightly off the track near Silver Spring on the Red Line, which has caused single tracking around the incident. Of course, never to miss a good meme, Paulo points out that the train may well be attempting a sweet multi-track drifting technique only possible in manga books.
Either way, avoid the Red Line near Silver Spring til they figure this out.
By Tom Bridge
‘Unknown Trains to Mysteryville’
courtesy of ‘Kevin H.’
At the darkest hour of Metro’s current crisis footing, four new members are coming to the Metro Board, all from the Federal sector. Metro will seat the first two before this week’s board meeting to determine budget direction and to help provide guidance before the budget gap is closed. Those two members are Mortimer L. Downey and Marcel C. Costa.
Why are they just coming onboard now? In response to the disaster this summer, and the increased funding coming from the Department of Transportation, Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Fairfax) said, “If the federal government is going to be kicking in $150 million a year, it deserves voting representation on the board,” which is a pretty solid point to make. The four members (two directors, two alternates) will join the board without the veto power that each of the twelve jurisdictional members possess.
The money quote, though, comes from Downey, a transportation consultant who served as a deputy secretary of transportation in the Clinton Administration: “The federal government would like its employees to arrive at work on time, fundamentally alive.”
Yep, I think that’s a bare minimum to demand from our transportation system right now.
By Ben H. Rome
‘Metro – Track Work – 6-27-09’
courtesy of ‘mosley.brian’
Of course, WMATA and GM John Catoe, Jr.’s resignation announcement continue to dominate most area transportation headlines. Tom already posited some questions that Metro needs to answer in their quest for a new GM (and for the Board to consider); I don’t see a reason to rehash it all. Mainly because, well, I’m just tired of Metro.
So a couple of short-n-sweet transportation notices you should be aware of…
WMATA: For the upcoming President’s Day holiday weekend, Metro plans to close the Rosslyn Metrorail station from 10 p.m., Friday, Feb. 12 to closing, Monday, Feb. 15. (The notification is at the end of the linked press release.) During the closing, Metro will install two new rail switches at the Rosslyn Metrorail station. Metro will operate free shuttle buses between the Court House and Foggy Bottom-GWU Metrorail stations and between the Pentagon and Foggy Bottom-GWU Metrorail stations. Riders should an extra 40 minutes to their travel plans if they need to pass through Rosslyn.
March for Life: This Friday is the 37th Annual March for Life on the Mall. (Map of the route is here.) The rally site is on the Mall at 7th Street NW and progresses along Constitution Avenue up to Capitol Hill and the Supreme Court. The rally starts at noon and usually is over by afternoon rush, but plan accordingly as the cross-streets along the path will be closed.
By Tom Bridge
‘bumpy concourse’
courtesy of ‘philliefan99’
Thursday afternoon’s resignation of Metro’s John Catoe came as a shock. Having been in a room with Catoe not 24 hours before, I was especially surprised. Catoe did not look like a man defeated by the challenge. Instead, I felt he had likely thought of a plan of action, and stood ready to implement it.
Instead, we are here, rudderless, facing a transit system in its biggest crisis moment. Metro has four very large looming problems that need to be solved in the next calendar year:
Finish the Realtime Train Detection System
Receive the NTSB Recommendations and fix what hasn’t yet been fixed
Deal with a $40M shortfall this FY, and a $160M deficit for 2010-2011
Figure out how to fund 300+ new 1000-series cars
And that’s just the subway side of things. Add to that the (largely in good shape, but congested) bus system, and you have a job that should be roughly on par with the Augean Stables. There’s a lot to get done, resources are at a premium, and they’re likely not to expand. So, where do we go from here? Continue reading
By Tom Bridge
‘WMATA Blogger Roundtable’
courtesy of ‘Samer Farha’
[Editorial update: We had no idea Catoe would tender his resignation today. And apparently, neither did anyone else at the meeting, except for Mr. Catoe.]
Wednesday afternoon at Metro HQ, we had a chance to sit down with the General Manager, John Catoe, along with ten of our closest blogfriends here in the District. No limits, all on the record, just our recorders and our questions and him. Before we get into the rest, I’d like to thank our contact at Metro, Ron Holzer, for putting this together. Getting direct access to the head of the transit agency is a pretty special thing, and I thank him for the opportunity.
If you’ve ridden Metro in the last few weeks, you’ve experienced the worst that the system has to offer: long delays, packed trains and stations, the system is at a boiling point. Tempers flare from riders and employees, and things are out of hand. We talked a bit about the root causes of the situation we’re in, and much leads back to the Crash of June 22nd. Metro relies on its Automatic Train Operation (ATO) system to operate at its highest efficiency levels. ATO allows for higher speeds, better control in a delayed operation situation, and right now it’s not available to the operations staff. That’s a choice made by Catoe and the Metro Board, until such time as they have the final NTSB report, and until they have the realtime detection system in place and operating. That’s months away at this point, with no clear timetable in place other than “this year.”
Better than that, Catoe admitted that they’re having an engineering problem since they went to mixed-model trains (to move the 1000-series cars to the center of trains) with doors not operating properly and sometimes not accepting the proper signals to close or open, which has lead to some of the platform crowding that we’re seeing on a daily basis. So that’s where we are. And we’re likely facing that sort of delay well into the Spring, when we’re looking at potential fare hikes and service cuts. But what about that shortfall? Continue reading
By Ben H. Rome
‘Navidad en el metro’
courtesy of ‘Daquella manera’
With apologies to purists of the Twelve Days of Christmas.
On the twelfth day of Christmas, Johnny Catoe and Metro gave to DC…
12 budget shortfalls of 22 40 175 million dollars!
10 SmarTrip card upgrades … no, wait … here we go … um, maybe … yes! … no, this one’s correct!
9 tourist tip guidelines (plus ancillaries, corollaries and exceptions)
8 doors opening to nowhere
FIIIIIIIVE customer friendly operators!!!!!!
3 in-the-dark Metro board members
2 Metro shower curtains
and one disillusioned, disgruntled rider!
Have a great holiday, everyone! See you in 2010.
By Ben H. Rome
‘Mind the Gap’
courtesy of ‘*tinadelarosa’
Dear Metro:
I’m just not into you anymore.
Look, it’s been a great relationship, for the most part. But I have to say, your actions and attitudes over the last few months had me worried to the point that I’ve begun looking at a much older friend to fulfill my needs.
I’d love to say “it’s not you, it’s me.” But it’s not me. It’s you.
By Ben H. Rome
Connecticut Avenue, courtesy of Daquella manera
It’s the day before Thanksgiving, one of the busiest travel days of the year. Here’s some common sense tips to help make your journey a little less stressful – and a whole lot safer.
Chances are if you’re reading this on the day before Thanksgiving, you’re either not going anywhere for the holiday weekend, you’re stuck at work hoping they’ll cut you loose early, or you procrastinated until the last minute and you need to leave five minutes ago. Still, regardless of your situation, I’m fairly sure these tips will come in handy at some point during the next six weeks as the end of the year comes upon us.
By Ben H. Rome
‘Service Advisory’
courtesy of ‘MattHurst’
WMATA quietly announced last night it has lifted a long-standing ban on allowing independent safety monitors access to Metro tracks. Metro board Chairman Jim Graham met with WMATA higher-ups yesterday and it had some result, supposedly. Late Tuesday, WMATA officials said that the Tri-State Oversight Committee (TSOC TOC) does have the authority to carry out safety inspections and ensuring employees are complying with safety rules and regulations.
But once again, Metro fails to communicate. Eric Madison, chairman of the oversight committee, told the Washington Post that as of last night, no one from Metro had contacted him about removing the ban; he considers the ban still in place. The Metro press release appears contradictory to what the TSOC TOC has heard previously and didn’t contain any new information, so until WMATA provides the committee with a formal written agreement, they consider the ban still in effect. Madison told WaPo “[w]e want to get something in writing that lays out the specifics of how we access the right of way and that sort of thing. This has gone on long enough.”
We feel your pain, Mr. Madison. Continue reading
By Don
‘HDR Union Station Metro’
courtesy of ‘Cazimiro’
WMATA has a press release out announcing their intention to appeal the labor arbitration that has returned a 9% pay increase for Metro employees. I haven’t gotten my hands on the arbitration findings yet but I have looked at the law WMATA is referencing.
They assert in the press release that the arbitration report fails to meet certain standards required by law, primarily relating to examining the agency’s funding ability and whether it will “affect the public welfare.” I don’t think they’re being deliberately sneaky – that’s the way it’s phrased in the law – but it might not mean what it looks like on its face. C’mon in and let’s take a look at their three issues one by one, as well as their closing assertion that the resulting pay increase would top 9%.
By Ben H. Rome
Stop-and-go traffic may become a thing of the past for Prince George’s County commuters. That is, if county planners have their way.
The county recently released its 171-page transportation master plan, which covers such ideas as extending WMATA’s Metrorail Purple and Green lines, High-Occupancy Vehicle lanes on heavily-trafficked roadways and other suggestions to get commuters out of their cars and onto public transit.
The plan, in the works for nearly two years, is directly in line with P-G’s overall growth policy, focusing less on residential development and delving more into mixed-use. The county wants its residents to be able to live, work and play in a more pedestrian-friendly environment.
By Don
As I watched the teams from multiple counties go through this drill I heard the radio announcement voice in my head say “If this has been an actual emergency, there would have been a lot less official rubberneckers taking snapshots.”
It makes perfect sense – if the point of a drill is to run a scenario and determine how well you’re doing things then you need observers who aren’t a part of the response to watch and grade. There were also other folks occasionally providing input to the suited-up response teams who were seemed to be running the scenario and providing the simulation participants with information about what they were discovering as they went.
The day started like all official operations: with a lot of waiting around. Those of us who’d shown up from the press to observe were given time to talk to Arlington and Alexandria county officials about the exercise, as well as a representative from the railroad management organization CSX. The visuals got a lot more interesting once we were led to the site of the simulated incident.
By Ben H. Rome
‘Inside the Metro Car’
courtesy of ‘Bogotron’
I was going to take today’s article and gripe about the “Follow the Rules” mandate now being enacted by most of the Metrobus drivers this week. But really, what’s the point? (And what exactly is their point, too, other than to make commuters surly and late?) So if you’d like to gripe or share your bus ride horror story, share in comments. I can’t really gripe, because I don’t ride the bus, but I offer you the chance to blow off steam.
Instead, I offer pictures.
Metro is the subject of many of our local photographers, including myself. So today let’s just take a grand look at some excellent shots taken by local and visiting photographers.
Sometimes, pictures are worth a thousand words. Continue reading
By Tom Bridge
‘Panned Metrobus’
courtesy of ‘philliefan99’
I know this makes me nerdy, but I love that scene in Wrath of Khan where Saavik and Spock start talking about doing things By The Book, and the post this morning from Unsuck DC Metro is reminiscent of that this morning. One of their readers announced a few changes on his 52 bus last night, suggesting that folks may need to allow for additional time due to drivers following regulations to the letter in order to better reduce casualties in the bus system. It’s not clear if this is an organized union-endorsed behavior, or if this could be considered like a work stoppage.
So, did your bus seems slower than usual this morning? Or, was it business as usual?
And yeah, you can totally call me a nerd for referencing Star Trek in a post about Metrobuses. Because I deserve it.
By Ben H. Rome
‘Do You Slow for Speed Cameras?’
courtesy of ‘Wayan Vota’
On Thursday, Big Brother is allowed to catch you speeding in Maryland. But will he really be watching?
The use of automated speed cameras becomes legal in Maryland tomorrow, but according to WaPo, few communities are jumping up to embrace it. Currently Gaithersburg, Chevy Chase Village, Takoma Park and Rockville employ the electronic devices – have been since 2006, since they went through the steps to use them. But some counties in the state have indicated they don’t plan on taking advantage of the new law.
The Maryland speed camera law was passed this past April. According to the law, before cameras can be used in other Maryland jurisdictions, the county or town council must hold a public hearing and give its approval. If the cameras are on federal or state highways, the approval of the State Highway Administration is required. Baltimore County has already authorized their use and several Prince George’s municipalities have started the process. (That would be Riverdale Heights, Berwyn Heights, New Carrollton, Bowie, District Heights and Cheverly, if you’re keeping track.)
Howard and Anne Arundel counties have no immediate plans but are taking initial steps to set aside money for possible programs. Continue reading
By Don
‘Negative’
courtesy of ‘lorigoldberg’
NTSB sent out letters yesterday to WMATA, Alstom Signaling, Inc, Federal Transit Administration and the Federal Railroad Administration. Each letter is slightly different but they all describe what NTSB believes to be the root cause behind the June 22nd Red Line crash.
Alstrom Signaling acquired General Railway Signal, the company that manufactured the WEE-Z bonds used in the metro system and installed in the 1970s at the Ft. Totten section of the red line. These are the devices used to sense and signal the presence of trains on the line and what have been suspected to be the root cause of the June collision.
The letter states “the investigation is ongoing” but confirms that these WEE-Z bonds, and the train sensing signal, continue to be the prime suspect. Immediately after that disclaimer NTSB says the following:
[P]ostaccident testing showed that the track circuit at the accident site lost detection of train 214 when it stopped at the location where the collision occurred. Because the automatic train protection (ATP) system was not detecting train 214’s location, the following train (train 112) did not receive a command to slow or stop in order to maintain train separation.
After that point we get into some pretty hard-core geek speak, but if you’re interested I’ll do a little translation.
By Tom Bridge
‘SmartBikes have arrived!’
courtesy of ‘kimberlyfaye’
As a native of the Western United States, I grew up with the belief that roads and cars were not just the way to get around, they were a birth-right not entirely unlike the right to vote. Silly, I know, but when you’re 30 miles from the nearest decent place to get a pair of jeans and Amazon.com hasn’t been invented yet, it’s not hard to figure out why they’re necessary. In much of DC, though, it’s easy to get around by Metrorail (that is when the trains are running) or Metrobus (when they’re not hitting people) so if you only occasionally give up your car for public transit, consider going car-free tomorrow.
There’s going to be a big Car-Free party at 7th & F Street in Penn Quarter, with all kinds of events. In addition, the Fojol Brothers, the Spy Cafe Cart and On-The-Fly will be selling tasty lunch options, and there’s going to be a ton of giveaways. Give it a look.
By Ben H. Rome
‘Going nowhere fast.’
courtesy of ‘jerseygal2009’
In a cost-saving move, the Fenty administration and DC DMV has persuaded the DC Council to end its safety inspection program for private cars. Emissions inspections will still be required every two years, however.
The mayor’s office has said that the city would save $400,000 with the move, which goes into effect on October 1. But is it the right move?
Yesterday, many safety advocates and city mechanics questioned the mayor’s wisdom with the move, saying that thousands of residents already fail to properly maintain their cars. Last year alone, 35 percent of those inspected in the District failed on their first look.
So are our streets about to be flooded with unsafe cars and an increase in wheels on the road? Many residents cite the hassle of the inspection process as one of the reasons they don’t own a car in the District. (Parking is another big one, in case you cared.)
By Tom Bridge
‘Flags at Union Station in Washington, DC’
courtesy of ‘dc-hulls’
If you’re headed past Union Station today, or through it for travel purposes, don’t get too freaked out by the extra police presence. Though, frankly, in this town? There’d have to be a whole awful lot of additional police for me to notice. So, it’s possible it won’t even hit a noticeable threshold of additional policing, but be aware, there is that possibility. It’s all part of a counter-terrorism exercise headed up by Amtrak police.
By Ben H. Rome
‘joy.’
courtesy of ‘nevermindtheend’
ZOMG METRO CLOZING 3 STATIONS DURING TEH HOLIDAY!!!1!one11!
I’m sure that’s the most common reaction by Blue and Yellow line riders who read Metro’s press release yesterday; it certainly seemed to be the tone set by commenters and blogs around the area.
Now, normally I’m one of the first detractors of Metro’s policies of late and yes, that was close to my initial reaction as well. It put a crimp into my own weekend plans, including a beloved relative flying in/out of DCA. But then I stopped to think about it.
It’s actually a good thing.
No, really! Continue reading
